A Child of the Jago, by Arthur Morrison

25

Dicky’s morning theft that day had been but a small one — he had run off with a new two-foot rule
that a cabinet-maker had carelessly left on an unfinished office table at his shop door in Curtain Road. It was not
much, but it might fetch some sort of a dinner at Weech’s, which would be better than going home, and, perhaps, finding
nothing. So about noon, all ignorant of his father’s misfortune, he came by way of Holywell Lane and Bethnal Green Road
to Meakin Street.

Mr Weech looked at him rather oddly, Dicky fancied, when he came in, but he took the two-foot rule with alacrity,
and brought Dicky a rasher of bacon, and a slice of cake afterward. This seemed very generous. More: Mr Weech’s manner
was uncommonly amiable, and when the meal was over, of his own motion, he handed over a supplementary penny. Dicky was
surprised; but he had no objection, and he thought little more about it.

As soon as he appeared in Luck Row he was told that his father had been ‘smugged.’ Indeed the tidings had filled the
Jago within ten minutes. Josh Perrott was walking quietly along Meakin Street — so went the news — when up comes Snuffy
and another split, and smugs him. Josh had a go for Weech’s door, to cut his lucky out at the back, but was caught.
That was a smart notion of Josh’s, the Jago opinion ran, to get through Weech’s and out into the courts behind. But it
was no go.

Hannah Perrott sat in her room, inert and lamenting. Dicky could not rouse her, and at last he went off by himself
to reconnoitre about Commercial Street Police Station, and pick up what information he might; while a gossip or two
came and took Mrs Perrott for consolation to Mother Gapp’s. Little Em, unwashed, tangled and weeping, could well take
care of herself and the room, being more than two years old.

Josh Perrott would be brought up to-morrow, Dicky ascertained, at the North London Police Court. So the next morning
found Dicky trudging moodily along the two miles of flags to Stoke Newington Road; while his mother and three
sympathising friends, who foresaw an opportunity for numerous tiny drops with interesting circumstances to flavour
them, took a penny cast on the way in a tramcar.

Dicky, with some doubt as to the disposition of the door-keeping policeman toward ragged boys, waited for the four
women, and contrived to pass in unobserved among them. Several Jagos were in the court, interested not only in Josh’s
adventure, but in one of Cocko Harnwell’s, who had indulged, the night before, in an animated little scramble with
three policemen in Dalston; and they waited with sympathetic interest while the luck was settled of a long string of
drunk-and-disorderlies.

At last Josh was brought in, and lurched composedly into the dock, in the manner of one who knew the routine. The
police gave evidence of arrest, in consequence of information received, and of finding the watch and chain in Josh’s
trousers pocket. The prosecutor, with his head conspicuously bedight with sticking-plaster, puffed and grunted up into
the witness-box, kissed the book, and was a ‘retired commission agent.’ He positively identified the watch and chain,
and he not less positively identified Josh Perrott, whom he had picked out from a score of men in the police-yard. This
would have been a feat indeed for a man who had never seen Josh, and had only once encountered his fist in the dark,
had it not been for the dutiful though private aid of Mr Weech: who, in giving his information had described Josh and
his one suit of clothes with great fidelity, especially indicating a scar on the right cheek-bone which would mark him
among a thousand. The retired commission agent was quite sure of the prisoner. He had met him on the stairs, where
there was plenty of light from a lamp, and the prisoner had attacked him savagely, beating him about the head and
flinging him downstairs. The policeman called by the prosecutor’s servant deposed to finding the prosecutor bruised and
bleeding. There was a ladder against the back of the house; a bedroom window had been opened; there were muddy marks on
the sill; and he had found the stick — produced — lying in the bedroom.

Josh leaned easily on the rail before him while evidence was being given, and said ‘No, yer worship,’ whenever he
was asked if he desired to question a witness. He knew better than to run the risk of incriminating himself by
challenging the prosecutor’s well-coloured evidence; and, as it was a certain case of committal for trial, it would
have been useless in any event. He made the same reply when he was asked if he had anything to say before being
committed: and straightway was ‘fullied.’ He lurched serenely out of the dock, waving his cap at his friends in the
court, and that was all. The Jagos waited till Cocko Harnwell got his three months and then retired to neighbouring
public-houses; but Dicky remembered his little sister, and hurried home.

The month’s session at the Old Bailey had just begun, so that Josh had no long stay at Holloway. Among the Jagos it
was held to be a most creditable circumstance that Josh was to take his trial with full honours at the Old Bailey, and
not at mere County Sessions at Clerkenwell, like a simple lob-crawler or peter-claimer. For Josh’s was a case of
burglary with serious violence, such as was fitting for the Old Bailey, and not even a High Mobsman could come to trial
with greater glory. ‘As like as not it’s laggin’ dues, after ’is other convictions,’ said Bill Rann. And Jerry Gullen
thought so too.

Dicky went, with his mother and Em, to see Josh at Newgate. They stood with other visitors, very noisy, before a
double iron railing covered with wire-netting, at the farther side whereof stood Josh and other prisoners, while a
screaming hubbub of question and answer filled the air. Josh had little to say. He lounged against the farther railing
with his hands in his pockets, asked what Cocko Harnwell had got, and sent a message to Bill Rann. While his wife did
little more than look dolefully through the wires, and pipe:—‘Oh, Josh, wotever shall I do?’ at intervals, with no
particular emotion; while Em pressed her smudgy little face against the wires, and stared mightily; and while Dicky
felt that if he had been younger he would have cried. When time was up, Josh waved his hand and slouched off, and his
family turned out with the rest: little Em carrying into later years a memory of father as a man who lived in a
cage.

In such a case as this, the Jago would have been for ever disgraced if Josh Perrott’s pals had neglected to get up a
‘break’ or subscription to pay for his defence. Things were never very flourishing in the Jago. But this was the sort
of break a Jago could not shirk, lest it were remembered against him when his own turn came. So enough was collected to
brief an exceedingly junior counsel, who did his useless best. But the facts were too strong even for the most
inexperienced advocate; the evidence of the prosecutor was nowhere to be shaken, and the jury found a verdict of guilty
without leaving the box — indeed, with scarce the formality of collecting their heads together over the rails. Then
Josh’s past was most unpleasantly raked up before him. He had been convicted of larceny, of assaulting the police, and
of robbery with violence. There were two sentences of six months’ imprisonment recorded against him, one of three
months, and two of a month. Besides fines. The Recorder considered it a very serious offence. Not deterred by the
punishments he had already received, the prisoner had proceeded to a worse crime — burglary; and with violence. It was
plain that lenience was wasted in such a case, and simple imprisonment was not enough. There must be an exemplary
sentence. The prisoner must be kept in penal servitude for five years.

Lagging dues it was, as Bill Rann had anticipated. That Josh Perrott agreed with him was suggested by the fact that
from the very beginning he described himself as a painter; because a painter in prison is apt to be employed at times
in painting — a lighter and a more desirable task than falls to the lot of his fellows in other trades.

In a room by the court Josh saw his wife, Dicky, and Bill Rann (Josh’s brother-in-law for the occasion) before his
ride to Holloway, his one stopping place on the way to Chelmsford Gaol. Little Em had been left sprawling in the Jago
gutters. This time Hannah Perrott wept in good earnest, and Dicky, notwithstanding his thirteen years, blinked very
hard at the wall before him. The arrangement of Josh’s affairs was neither a long nor a difficult labour. ‘S’pose
you’ll ’ave to do wot you can with rush bags, an’ sacks, and match-boxes, an’ wot not,’ he said to his wife, and she
assented. Josh nodded:—‘An’ if you ’ave to go in the ’ouse,’— he meant the workhouse — ‘well, it can’t be ’elped. You
won’t be no wuss auf ‘n me.’

‘Oh, she’ll be awright,’ said Bill Rann, jerking his thumb cheerfully toward the missis. ‘Wot about you?
Think they’ll make it Parkhurst?’

Josh shook his head moodily. Parkhurst being the prison reserved for convicts of less robust habit, he had little
hope of enjoying its easier conditions. Presently he said:—‘I bin put away this time — fair put away.’

And then time was up. Josh suffered the missis to kiss him, and shook hands with Bill Rann. ‘Good luck to all you
Jagos,’ he said. Dicky shook hands too, and said ‘Good-bye, father!’ in a voice of such laboured cheerfulness that a
grin burst for a moment amid Josh’s moody features as he was marched away, and so departed for the place — in Jago
idiom — where the dogs don’t bite.